There has been a good deal of debate in Ealing about the “cuts”. One thing we have not heard about is the Labour administration’s ideas about shared services. Today we have heard some early results of the Westminster, Kensington & Chelsea and Hammersmith & Fulham project – an ambitious programme that aims to save £33 million across the three councils by 2015/6. In particular the project aims to halve the number of middle and senior managers. As I pointed out last Friday Ealing’s bill for its senior management team is £8.9 million. Half of that would be well worth having.
The detail of the first £1 million of savings makes interesting reading:
- £320k by sharing a single director of children’s services
- £320k by sharing a single director of adult services
- £100k by sharing a single director of libraries
- £150k by combining environmental services across Hammersmith & Fulham and Kensington & Chelsea
- £120k by combining making a joint appointment to the director for schools’ quality and standards between Hammersmith & Fulham and Kensington & Chelsea.
All these savings involve taking out senior management roles; something that Ealing has signally failed to address.
A more detailed document is available here.